Redemption
by GreenFinchAndLinnetBird
Summary: Don't worry, I'm cringing too at the title. I'm not good at titles when I first start writing a story and that was all I could think of. A story written by Raoul, on two people from his past, one being Erik, and Raoul creating a future to ease his guilt.


Yes, this isn't the most orthodox way to write fiction. What can I say? I'm experimenting with different ways of telling a story. I hope it makes sense and that you enjoy it.

A story written by Raoul, but based on two people from his past, one who I think you're all familiar with. The prologue is written as if he is writing it himself, and adding notes to himself like a lot of aspiring writers do.

Please review. It encourages me to write more, and I don't bite.

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**Prologue.**

There was a girl that I once ruined. Ah, what a conceited statement for a young man to make – for it implies that I had almighty power and manipulated it – but it is a true one nonetheless. In our world men are Gods and women fall prey to our whims, then when we have finished with them we leave them for society to scorn and destroy. Don't you see an example of that? The ones that lurk on street corners, the nameless ones, with brash crimson rouge on their lips and shamelessly revealed curves. I could wager that all of them are selling themselves because we the Gods failed them. Absent fathers, abusing lovers, the indifferent clergy, brothers with no sense of duty…

Ah, I'm being tedious. This wasn't supposed to be a philosophical rant, but a story of what I hope came to be. A happy ending. An imagined justification to my selfish crimes.

I am the Vicompte Raoul de Chagny, the younger son of nobility and the darling of Paris. I am seen to be like the hero of a storybook…

Oh, lord, I sound like a pompous ass. I would destroy this piece of paper and start again, but I am told that to write one needs to endure crass beginnings until one reaches some semblance of…Of…Un-nonsense. Un-nonsense. Oh, if my Father were alive to see what sort of education his son possesses. All that wealth invested in a Notre Dame education and his youngest spouts asinine made-up words…

**Note to self:** Ask Michelle to visit the apocathary. Corbin's cough is worsening, and it does so worry Lotte.

This ordeal occurred long before the Phantom of the Opera. Long before Christine entered my life again. There was a girl before her, and I ruined her **(Damn, I have already mentioned that, discard for the second draft).** I was fifteen, a child. I did not even love her. Not in the way a man _should_ love a woman. I _wanted_ her. She was **(is)** the daughter of a wealthy tradesman. I was friends with her brother, and in turn I called her a friend too. Oh, dear, sweet, unfortunate Hélène.

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I am home now after surrendering to the fact it is near impossible to write in a carriage travelling down an uneven road. I am in bed, my sleeping wife lying beside me; her dark curls a beautiful mess over the pillow. Our child is sleeping too, in her arms. She always insists on bringing him to bed with us when his health ails. I was not there of course, when Hélène bore the labour of our son, but I was outside the room pacing frantically when Christine gave birth to Corbin. Oh, Heaven help me, a woman should not have to endure such agony. Shamefully, it was not my wife's pain that my mind was solely on that early morning…It was Hélène, all those years ago, giving birth to our bastard.

I must write about Hélène. I must make it understood what occurred between us. I am a selfish being, thus it makes it difficult for me to erase myself from the story. **Remember: This is not my narrative.****This is not.**

A hand touches my arm. A gentle, loving hand. I jerk in startlement, not realizing that my wife is awake, her eyes watching me and understanding me far too much. She sits up, and our boy stirs a little in his sleep but does not wake. Gently she takes the quill from me and places it in the inkpot on my bedside table, then places the manuscript beside it. She leans against my shoulder and murmurs quietly, "It is time to forget Hélène for the night, Raoul. You can write tomorrow…"

She leans over me, and with a puff the candlelight is vanquished. The room is pooled in darkness and as I lay beside her, she welcomes me in the same embrace which harbours our child. Our child born into privilege at the right time. And I think about the other, who was not.

This is not my narrative.


End file.
